TOXICOLOGICAL EVALUATION OF PERFLUOROOCTANE (PFOS) IN THE ENVIRONMENT: ANATOMY OF AN ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUE

Prof. Giesy has affected your life and that of every living thing on the planet. This is the story of how he applied state of the art chemical methods of mass spectrometry and molecular biology to determine the status and trends of concentrations in the environment and worked out the mechanisms of toxicity and thresholds for effects. Ultimately, through a global assessment of risk the chemicals were banned. This is the scientific and political story of how a very valuable chemical used in many processes was ultimately banned and the public hardly knew anything had happened.